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After much discussion, the scholar Cyrus managed to convince his fellows Tressa, Olberic and Therion to return with him to university to pick up a few tomes he’d misplaced. Much grumbling and several days later, the group ended up further north than they’d ever come together, in the town of Flamesgrace.

This is where they came upon Ophilia.

Before she was pressed into attempting a dangerous pilgrimage (more on that later), Ophilia had spent most of her life in the shadow of the person she most loved in the world, her foster sister, Lianna. Both have walked the same path as acolytes in the Great Cathedral, whose bishop is the girls’ father. Lianna is a brilliant orator, an exceptional pupil, and an obedient daughter whose greatest wish is to follow in her father’s footsteps and make him proud. Under other circumstances, it would be Lianna who is the main character of this story — but that is not the case.

Ophilia doesn’t resent her sister for all that she is the Great Cathedral’s star pupil; perhaps she is even blind to her own contributions to Lianna’s success, and her own popularity amongst the faithful. All the young cleric wishes for is to help her sister perform her duties better. She is every inch the selfless young lady you would expect her to be from the very first, and her capacity for self-sacrifice is equalled only by her sheepishness around her adopted family.

After a heartwarming attempt of father and daughter to remind ‘Phili that she is, indeed, a part of the family, Archbishop Joseph got into the nitty-gritty about what’s to be expected during his daughter’s pilgrimage. Death, danger, devilry of all sorts, and the fate of the world. The typical drawbacks of failing in one’s religious quest. For further commentary on horrible, terrible no-good religious pilgrimages, look up Final Fantasy X.

It’s later on that very day that Ophilia, while entertaining a visitor seeking to speak with the Archbishop, is sent word that her adoptive father has fallen ill. Joseph is in fact in good humour, even if his repeated coughing worries Phili to no end and sends Lianna to think things through at the two sisters’ favourite spot, overlooking the Cathedral.

It is then that Phili suffers from an onset of Flashback Syndrom, remembering her coming to the home of Joseph and Lianna after her parents perished during the great war ten years ago (possibly the same war that Olberic fought in? The time period fits!). Ophilia was a closed-off child for a long time because of that, exhibiting near-Batman symptoms of loneliness, until Lianna managed to get through to her, and made of her a friend.

Lianna helped Ophilia when our newest recruit needed it most; now, Phili has the idea to do the same, by making certain Lianna does not leave her father’s side at his hour of greatest need, and instead taking up the mantle of Flame-barer herself.

The party enjoying the sights!

Having talked the party into helping her, the cleric leads them to the cave within which the Sacred Flame rests. But before she grabs it in the sacred lantern, a wild challenger appears!

Of course the party turned the stone monstrosity into a bunch of boulders, courtesy of some excellent boulderwo–pardon, bladework by Olberic and Therion. This done and over with, Ophilia is now the proud bearer of the Sacred Flame, and her quest to carry it around in order to save the world from ever-lasting darkness, begins!

Well, before she can get going, Phili is forced to sit down with Lianna and discuss all the details that were kept from her because she never needed to know about them.

Ah, religious quests in jRPGs. Nothing quite like them. There’s one more interesting companion story in Octopath Traveler; after I tell it, I will just rush through the seventh and eight companions since their stories are basic and not all that interesting — yet, anyway. For now, thank you for reading, and…we’ll find out what becomes of Ophilia soon!